


Barbed Wire

by ceterisparibus



Series: Prompts! [13]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Getting Together, Human Disaster Jessica Jones, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Jessica Jones Needs a Hug, Many many hugs, Mutual Pining, References to Depression, Stubborn Matt Murdock, and kinda dramatic, because i can't help myself, let's be honest they're both stubborn, they're called Mess for a reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28533828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceterisparibus/pseuds/ceterisparibus
Summary: Jessica Jones slowly (reluctantly) lets Matt Murdock in.
Relationships: Jessica Jones & Karen Page, Jessica Jones/Matt Murdock
Series: Prompts! [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1334596
Comments: 62
Kudos: 122
Collections: DDE’s 2021 New Year’s Day Exchange





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [djinnj](https://archiveofourown.org/users/djinnj/gifts).



> The prompt is "There is a mouse in the wall gnawing an uncooked piece of macaroni" and I promise that delightful image will show up eventually.

Jessica

Matt Murdock was under her skin, and she wasn’t happy.

When he first came back from what everyone thought was the dead, she hadn’t really had _space_ to deal with it. Everything with Trish was happening; her life was a general dumpster fire; the last thing she had was the time or energy or _emotional capacity_ to deal with what was Matt Murdock’s train wreck of a life. Yeah, she felt a tiny bit guilty when a fake Daredevil showed up and she didn’t do anything, didn’t even reach out, but guilt was pretty much her new baseline emotion, so a bit more here or there didn’t really make a difference.

Besides, it all worked out okay. Matt Murdock defeated the fake Daredevil and a crime boss and he got his law firm back and he got all his friends back, and in the meantime Jessica got to put her best friend and sister in a prison that was technically illegal. (Jessica would know. She’d done her research. And it hadn’t changed anything.)

Anyway.

He started reaching out after a few weeks. Texting her. Even calling, once in a while. She ignored him. She was ignoring everyone. Easier that way. She had her clients for as long as it took to get paid, and that was it. Safer that way. Even when pissed-off spouses screamed in her face. Even on those memorable occasions when some idiot brought a gun or a knife to her office. She almost looked forward to those days. At least it was interesting.

Nothing else was. Her days were the same. Wake up, drink. Either lounge around her apartment-slash-office or go take pictures, depending on her target’s schedule (drinking as she went). Maybe go to a bar if she was free at night, and try not to think about Luke. Drink a lot. Go home. Try to sleep. Have nightmares about Trish or Kilgrave or both. Wake up and repeat the whole thing.

She knew it wasn’t healthy, but she also could absolutely not bring herself to care.

Unfortunately, if Matt Murdock was good at anything, it was caring.

(Once he started reaching out again, the dust of Midland Circle and his warm brown eyes joined the list of things she could look forward to seeing in her nightmares.)

After leaving his third overly-apologetic voicemail on her phone (she listened to all of them like a complete masochist; apparently he’d done some research after she ignored the first two, because the third mentioned how sorry he was for _Trish_ ) (like that was his fault), he showed up at her apartment. Since between the two of them she wasn’t the one with x-ray smelling or whatever, she didn’t know it was him until she opened the door and came face-to-face with his cane-and-glasses routine and his absurdly fluffy hair.

Her stomach dropped. She was not prepared to deal with this.

His lips quirked in a lopsided, chagrinned smile that didn’t look right under the hard surface of the red sunglasses concealing his eyes. “Hi, Jessica.”

“The hell are you doing here?” she demanded.

He looked completely unsurprised at her vehemence. Instead, his forehead creased in something that looked suspiciously like _concern_. “You weren’t answering me. I got worried.”

“ _You’re_ the one who ended up under a _building_ ,” she hissed.

“I know, and I’m so sorry. I…I left some voicemails,” he added hesitantly. “I don’t know if you got them.”

If she said no, he might launch into a fresh apology. “I heard them,” she admitted bitterly.

His head tilted; the yellowish light from her apartment glinted off the lenses of his glasses. “You listened?”

Damnit. Now it seemed like she cared. She was so focused on keeping the wall up between them that she lashed out without stopping to think about how her words might affect him. “Have to get my entertainment somehow.”

He took an actual, physical step backwards.

“Sorry,” she blurted out before she could stop herself. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s fine.” Everything about his tone and body language screamed that it was not fine. “I can go.”

She couldn’t even bring herself to tell him not to. She just stood there while he backed up, turned, and started down the hall, watching until he disappeared into the elevator.

Shutting her eyes, she knocked her forehead against her door frame. “Nice going, Jones,” she muttered, and then remembered he could definitely still hear her. Meaning it wasn’t too late for an apology. But the very thought of him listening in like that made her skin itch and crawl, so she slammed the door and scrounged around for the nearest container of alcohol, only to find that she couldn’t quite drink enough to erase the memory of that soft smile of his she’d snuffed out.

Matt

Sitting at some bar he didn’t even know the name of, Matt tipped back another drink, clinging to the burn traveling down his throat, and wished he could just forget Jessica Jones.

It shouldn’t be hard; they’d been in each other’s life for only a handful of days. But everything surrounding their interactions was too profound to forget. Elektra. The Hand. Midland Circle. Even realizing that there were other people like him—not _like_ him, exactly, but sort of—was simply too big a thing to forget.

It was the smaller thing, though, that was truly the most impossible to ignore, and this was the fact that, when he’d been at his lowest, she’d been the first (and only) person to make him laugh genuinely. Sure, he might’ve chuckled with Foggy or Karen once in a while, but any happiness he found with them was constantly dampened by a heavy layer of guilt.

Jessica, though. When everyone else was pulling back, she’d pushed in. When everyone else was putting up their own walls, she’d torn through his. When everyone else was worried and tense and acting like he was one bad day away from finally going entirely insane, she’d told him she wanted to trust him.

He couldn’t just forget something like that.

So he’d reached out, knowing full well that she must hate him for what he’d put her through, but determined to do whatever he could to make amends. Only to be met with radio silence. Which was _fair_ , of course, but also unsettling.

He knew Jessica. He felt presumptuous even thinking that, but he _did_. And he knew that Jessica Jones should be taking every opportunity to rake him over the coals for what he’d done. Why would she use the silent treatment when she had a perfectly good barbed tongue at her disposal?

He knew he had a problem with overthinking. With assuming the worst. With bracing himself for worst case scenarios (even as he walked right into them). But still. He was worried. So he reached out to her…friend or sister or whatever Trish was.

Only to discover that Trish was locked up on the Raft.

Well. Now Matt felt like a complete bastard. So desperate for his own absolution despite the fact that she’d lost the one person she loved most.

At first, Matt told himself to back all the way off. Let Jessica grieve in peace and come to terms with life without Trish, without her best friend. He knew how hard it was to reorder yourself with such an integral piece missing. But then he thought about it more. Thought about the fact that Jessica clearly didn’t have great coping mechanisms to begin with. Thought about the fact that she didn’t really have other friends that he knew of. Thought about the possibility that maybe deciding for both of them to remove himself from the equation wasn’t actually a great idea.

He left another voicemail. When that went nowhere, he braced himself to be verbally (and possibly physically, though he considered that significantly less likely) torn apart, and went to her apartment.

In one sense, it went worse than even he had anticipated. She might as well have punched him full strength for how stunned he felt at her response to his apologies. (Maybe he hadn’t been as braced as he’d thought; maybe he’d secretly thought he deserved her kindness after all.) He’d beat a hasty retreat, tail between his legs, to nurse his ego over his own stiff drink.

In another sense, that encounter crystalized things.

Even sitting here at this bar, Matt couldn’t stop replaying everything he’d picked up with his senses. Her place was a mess, and she no less. He couldn’t even tell when she’d last eaten or slept, and she reeked of alcohol. But her words, though sharp in and of themselves, sounded dull when they left her mouth. Jessica Jones was not supposed to sound like that.

Matt wasn’t entirely sure his pride had fully recovered from the sting of what she’d said to him, but he couldn’t deny the growing conviction that his pride simply didn’t matter. Besides, her muffled last words to herself also rang in his ears, suggesting that she hadn’t quite meant what she’d said. Suggesting she might even regret shoving him away so decisively.

Of course, he was under no illusion that he could save her from…everything she was going through. All he knew was that she’d been there for him when everything else had fallen apart. The least he could do was try to do the same for her.


	2. Chapter 2

Jessica

Normally, a bad experience of just about any type sent her to one of two places: her bedroom with a flask of alcohol, or a roof somewhere (also with a flask of alcohol). She paced her bedroom for a good hour or two after sending Murdock away before the whole apartment seemed to close in on her.

(She wasn’t claustrophobic except when she was.)

Grabbing her flask and her camera, she shrugged into a jacket, wrapped a well-worn scarf around her neck, and took to the roofs.

This wasn’t a job. This was just about getting out of her own head by spying on other people’s lives. She wandered around as the sun set, covertly stealing photos here and there. A man sitting alone at a bus stop. A woman ducking around a corner to take a phone call. A leaf falling from a tree.

(She didn’t often take pictures of inanimate objects. But the falling leaf struck her, for some reason, so she snapped a picture.)

Eventually, she settled in someone’s rooftop garden, smelling too-strongly of ridiculous flowers she didn’t recognize. (Trish would’ve known their names.) It wasn’t a comfortable spot, but it gave her the perfect angle looking into an apartment across the street where a couple was having some kind of vicious argument. The man’s presence dominated the room: he paced back and forth, jerking his hands around, obviously yelling. The woman, on the other hand, stood completely still with her arms folded tightly across her chest. Yet the man was giving her a wide berth. Jessica couldn’t be sure, but she was willing to bet the woman had all the power here.

People could be so interesting.

Jessica only glanced away from the viewfinder to stretch her neck, but it was enough to see him. Murdock, about two buildings away, heading west, moving quickly despite a slight limp. He wasn’t in his stupid devil suit, but he kept the upper half of his face hidden under black and he didn’t so much as cock his head in her direction.

She frowned. Had he not noticed her? Then it hit her: the fact that she was practically enveloped in cloying floral scents. Maybe he couldn’t sense her beneath the strong smells? Especially if he was focused on something else.

Like not pitching straight off the edge of the next roof over when he dropped down onto it and stumbled on the landing, his right leg buckling. Her stomach flipped, but he managed to fall forwards instead of backwards, catching himself in a half-crouch.

Her eyes narrowed. He must be in bad shape.

She noted this fact in a weirdly detached way. Sure, she might act detached half the time, but she wasn’t really. At least, she didn’t used to be. It was kind of nice, though. When was the last time caring _hadn’t_ dragged her into something big and painful?

But the unsteady, slightly shaky way Murdock rose back to his feet was so unlike him, and then he started _moving forward_ like he planned to keep hopping along roofs like this, and really why was she even surprised anymore.

She hadn’t been able to help get him out from under Midland Circle. She’d replayed it a thousand times in her memory, and yet couldn’t think of a _single thing_ she could’ve done that would’ve made a difference. (Waiting down there with him would’ve gotten her and Luke and Danny killed. She could’ve grabbed Murdock and slung him over her shoulder and _forced_ him out of there, but he would’ve fought her every step of the way, and he might’ve won. Even if he hadn’t, Jessica didn’t think she would’ve been able to get him out of there while also fighting off his ninja ex-girlfriend.)

But this? This, she could help him with.

Grinding her teeth at herself, she raised her voice. “Devil-boy!”

He stopped dead in his tracks, head swiveling in her direction. “Jessica?”

So he knew her voice even if he couldn’t smell her. She extracted herself from the plantlife. “Over here, idiot.”

And he, like an idiot, started towards her, limping even more heavily than before, so heavily that he listed all the way to the left as he approached the gap separating their roofs. A much larger gap than the one he’d just jumped.

“Wait, no, _stop_ ,” Jessica ordered, shocked by his sheer stupidity. Or stubbornness. Well, the two seemed to go hand-in-hand. Jessica was familiar. But was he seriously planning on making another, bigger jump when he’d almost missed the last one? Of course he was. He was infuriating.

Setting aside her camera (but tucking her flask into her jacket pocket; she was definitely gonna need it), she took two quick steps and leapt, soaring across the distant to land with a _thud_ right in front of him. He pulled back, confusion written all over his face. The bottom half of his face.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” She pushed down on his shoulders; his knees buckled and he hit the ground with a visible wince and a low groan. She probably should’ve been more gentle.

He completely dodged the question as he shifted to stretch his injured leg out in front of him. “Didn’t know you were here. You have a case?”

“Why haven’t you called Claire?” she shot back.

“Who are you spying on?”

She poked at his leg. Even in the darkness, she can see it glistening with blood. “What happened here?”

He winced again, and finally answered a damn question. “Had a disagreement with some unsavory individuals.”

“Knife?” she asked, peeling the fabric of his combat pants back, making a face at how sticky everything was.

He shrugged. “More like a hatchet.”

She squinted at his leg and decided that, yeah, the gash was too big and jagged to just be from a knife. “What, people just carry those around?”

“They do if you know where to look.”

“You could at least _pretend_ to have a sense of self-preservation,” she snapped, and it was just a bit too real as the collapse of Midland Circle flashed behind her eyes again. She distracted herself by dumping her whisky straight on the gash in his leg, and raised her eyebrows at the utterly undignified yelp he let out. “Shut up. You wanna attract attention?”

“A small warning would’ve sufficed,” he replied through teeth gritted against pain.

“I don’t have stitches or anything on me.” With that, she unwound the scarf from around her neck and pressed it to his wound.

His hand shot out, fingers clamping down hard on her wrist. Good thing he started to let go an instant later, because she was already jerking free with enough force to break his fingers if he hadn’t already lessened his grip.

“Sorry,” he whispered after a moment.

Her heart was still racing. She didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything. She did come back closer, again, close enough to wrap the scarf around his leg.

He cleared his throat. “I’m no expert, but I doubt you’ll be able to get the blood out of your scarf.”

“Shouldn’t you be an expert on getting blood out of clothes?”

“Not out of…” He sniffed. “Cashmere? Pashmina? What is that, exactly?”

“Dunno. It’s soft.”

“Yeah.” He leaned back on his elbows. “It is.”

Since she didn’t have stitches or anything, there was nothing to do but sit there pressing on the scarf, trying to maintain pressure without accidentally breaking his leg or something. Technically, she supposed he could handle it from here, but she didn’t really trust him to, and besides, she’d come up on the roofs looking for a distraction. A distraction from _him_ , sure, but Daredevil was easier to talk to than Matt Murdock. Daredevil was a disaster. Murdock was too, but Murdock pretended not to be. Pretended he had his life together enough to care about hers.

She had to break this stupid silence. “What do you hear?”

His head cocked towards her.

“I mean, out in the city. With your bat ears.”

“They’re not bat ears.” But he tipped his head in the other direction, doing that thing he did that meant he was scanning for sounds only he could hear. “There’s a family in this building. Four floors down. Playing some kind of game. They’re all laughing.”

That was a weirdly domestic thing for him to focus on. “I thought you were gonna talk about people screaming or something.”

His jaw tightened. “Not much I can do about that at the moment.”

Oh. Whoops. Probably shouldn’t have brought that up.

But why should she care if it bothered him? He was the one who chose to put the weight of the world on his own shoulders.

She _didn’t_ care.

“You’re tense,” he murmured.

She glared, wishing he could see it. “No shit. You got gashed with a hatchet.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Shut up.” She pressed harder on the scarf. “I know I don’t.”

He hesitated. Cleared his throat again. “Listen, Jessica, I’m—I’m sorry.”

“I told you to shut up.”

His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “I’m—I’m just saying. The last thing I want is to be a burden to you, on top of everything you’re already—” He cut himself off.

“I’m fine.”

He was quiet for a second. Then: “You know I can tell when you’re lying.”

Dropping his leg, she shot to her feet. “You’re seriously listening to my heartbeat right now?”

Stupid to think he wouldn’t be but somehow she _had_ thought that, she hadn’t been prepared, and now—

She couldn’t see his eyes, but the way he shrank away was perfectly clear. “I—I can’t really help it.”

“I thought you were listening to the city,” she said stupidly, _so stupidly_.

He bit his lip. “I was. It’s just—it’s hard to block things out, especially anything close to me.”

That made sense, logically, but she didn’t care. Her heart was racing, and _he was listening to it_. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Your scarf—”

The idiot actually started _unwrapping it_ , like he was about to give it back even though he _needed_ it, and she was already panicking enough as it was, so she just jumped high into the air and over onto the next building, snatching up her camera before doing it again and again and again until she hoped, desperately, she might’ve gotten out of his range.

Listening to her _heartbeat_.

It wasn’t new. He must’ve been doing it since he met her. It just…she could not deal with that level of invasiveness right now. (If she ever could.) She didn’t know exactly how detailed his senses were, but she didn’t want to think about what he’d be able to read in her. Guilt, fear, hopelessness…she hated all of it, but at least it was _hers_ , and it was _private_ , and what did she do wrong to deserve so many men pushing straight into all the parts of her that were the most vulnerable?

Matt was not Kilgrave. She knew that in her head. But she couldn’t convince her pounding heart or twisting stomach to agree.

Matt

His head was spinning. Partially from blood loss, he supposed, but predominately from Jessica’s swift and sudden departure. Especially because it was his fault. He should’ve just kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to lie to her, especially not about his abilities, not when abnormal abilities that disturbed other people was something they had in common. But clearly a lie by omission would’ve been wise here. He’d do better next time.

Assuming he got a next time.

Speaking of that, he should probably do something about his leg. It definitely needed stitches, but for now he just wrapped the scarf tighter around it. He could still make out her scent, simultaneously sweet and spicy, lingering on the soft cloth under the coppery tang of his own blood. He still felt the ghostly pressure of her fingers holding him together.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. He needed to get her a new scarf. If she let him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I miscalculated (surprise, surprise) and this is now 4 chapters. Also, Karen insisted on butting in, so I had to add a tag for her.


	3. Chapter 3

Jessica

She missed Trish. She missed Malcolm. She missed Luke. She missed her _mom_. She even missed Erik. Having him around pushed back the blackness of her life just a little, and not only because of his amazing burgers. But life in New York was hard for an empath. He ended up moving out to some rural state on the west coast a few months ago.

He insisted it wasn’t because of _her_. He even went through the motions of inviting her to come with him, even though they both knew she wouldn’t. It was definitely for the best. She wasn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows these days, even less than usual. Couldn’t be fun for an empath.

And that was fine. She didn’t need anyone, and definitely not a man. When (if) she decided to really pull herself out of this…this whatever-it-was funk (she knew what it was), she’d do it on her own. She’d come back from worse than this before.

Just…coming back was easier when you had someone to come back _to_. It hurt realizing how badly she’d needed Trish while prying herself from Kilgrave’s grasp. Even when Trish wasn’t _around_ , just knowing she was out there somewhere helped. Having someone, _anyone_ , as an anchor…it helped.

And, well…Matt was someone. The problem was, her preferred kind of anchor was mostly inanimate. Just a thing out there, more like a distant north star than a helping hand. And Matt (like Trish), was very bad at being inanimate. He needed to butt in and get involved and _fix_ things.

But she wasn’t fodder for his messiah complex. She didn’t want his help or his concern or his kindness.

(Then again, would that really be so bad?)

He sent her random texts: _Hey; How are you; How are your clients._ It was all painfully awkward. She amused herself by responding as sarcastically as possible—when she responded at all. Some days, she just flipped the phone over so she wouldn’t have to see the notification, and refused to beat herself up for it.

Then a pizza showed up at her apartment. She gave it a quick sniff to make mostly sure it wasn’t poisoned, then scarfed down half of it. It was warm and loaded with meat and vegetables and at least three kinds of cheese, and it tasted better than literally any pizza she’d ever had before. Probably because it was all super organic or whatever. She knew no one but him could’ve sent it, but for some reason she felt weird about reaching out to thank him for it, so she didn’t.

Until he came by a few days later with a brand new scarf to replace the one he’d bled all over. Then she offered him a few slices she’d kept in the fridge. He didn’t eat it, though. “Smells like meatloaf,” he said, almost apologetically, gesturing at the Tupperware she’d stored the slices in. But he said it with a smile that made her worry he was reading way too much into her offer of cold leftovers.

His next gift made her jaw drop: expensive wine he claimed was a gift from Foggy Nelson. He mumbled something about preferring the cheap stuff, but she put that to the test by inviting him to stay and drink with her. Which he did. So he couldn’t have thought it was that bad.

After that, drinking together became a _thing_. Almost a regular thing. The weird (scary) part was, it was…kind of fun?

Drunk Matt was a lot less moody than sober Matt. His words weren’t crisp and clear and carefully-chosen like usual; instead, he rambled about politics and legal doctrines and maybe even a religious idea or two; it was hard to tell when she didn’t understand half of it. For a split second, she was embarrassed about that. But she shoved _that_ feeling down real quick, apparently too quick for his creepy senses to catch it.

Anyway, since drunk Jessica was pretty much normal Jessica, it was actually really interesting seeing how their dynamic changed when the only difference was removing Matt’s filter and allowing him to live in the moment for once. He laughed at every little thing she said or did, but she knew he wasn’t flirting. Not intentionally, anyway. He could be charming when he wanted—she’d seen snippets of it, not to mention done enough digging into his history to know he’d gotten plenty of positive reviews in the romance department during law school—but the huge grin he broke out around her just looked too stupid to be calculated.

(Did she wish he was flirting?)

Matt

Matt was well aware that, for reasons he didn’t exactly know and didn’t particularly want to explore, he fell in love too easily. If someone was a vaguely decent person (or even, sometimes, if they weren’t) and he felt at all like they’d gotten to know him in a way that mattered, he was pretty much guaranteed to be head over heels.

Which was unfortunate when he was trying to help someone. Romance made things too entangled. Made it hard to accurately gauge whether he was really being helpful. Made it impossible to determine whether he was actually being altruistic.

And it was painfully obvious that the last thing Jessica needed right now was the pressure of his feelings. The trouble with feelings, of course, was that they refused to go away simply because you wanted them to.

Matt wasn’t sure what to do. He was reasonably certain it was accurate to say that his relationship with Jessica had deepened into real friendship, which meant he couldn’t exactly pull back now. Not unless he knew someone else would be there for her in his vacancy. But he didn’t know how long he could keep going this way without him messing it all up unless he got his feelings under control.

And what about _her_ feelings? His senses, normally so reliable when it came to this kind of thing, were all but worthless with Jessica, whose pulse might speed up for a hundred different reasons. Leaving Matt with no idea whether his affection was reciprocated.

(He tried to convince himself that reciprocation would just make things worse. Yeah, things were going fine now, but he liked to think of himself as occasionally capable of self-awareness, and he knew he was still just a few bad days away from sliding backwards. Maybe it would never be as bad as it was after Midland Circle, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be _bad_. What if he finally convinced Jessica she could rely on him, only to prove them both wrong?)

He needed help. He considered going to Foggy or even Maggie, but somehow the person he couldn’t get out of his mind was Karen. After all, neither Foggy nor Maggie really knew what it was like to be truly _alone_.

Besides, Matt and Karen were friends. Really, they were. But she’d made it clear shortly after starting Nelson, Murdock, and Page that there would never be anything romantic between them again. It hurt, at first, but he’d refused to push her away just because he still wanted more at the time, so he’d made himself act like he completely agreed. He wasn’t sure what changed, but eventually the act became reality. Their friendship became something simple and sweet.

He just hoped he wasn’t somehow jeopardizing it with this. But he’d take the risk if it meant helping Jessica.

This was going to be horribly awkward.

Karen agreed to meet him for coffee before work one day, and listened without interrupting as he fumbled through the whole story. Well, almost the whole story: he didn’t mention his feelings. Karen’s advice had to be for Jessica’s sake, not his.

“I’m confused,” Karen said when he finished talking. “Why exactly do you need my help? I mean, it sounds like you’re doing a good job being there for her.”

“But what if I’m not doing enough?”

“You can’t fix everything for her,” Karen reminded him. “You’ll probably just piss her off if you try.”

“But how do you know I couldn’t be doing more? Not everything. Just…more.”

Karen sighed. “You know, this is almost exactly how I felt when I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with you before you told me about, you know…” She lowered her voice, whispering under the bustle of the coffee shop: “…the mask.”

Matt frowned. “What?”

“I knew you needed help, but I also knew staging some kind of intervention would just push you away. It was…really hard.” She shrugged, but couldn’t shake the sadness in her tone, even though those memories were old now. “I’m sorry you’re in that position with Jessica.”

“I’m…sorry you were in that position with me,” Matt replied, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He meant the words, but he also had decidedly _not_ meant for the conversation to go in this direction.

“It’s fine. Anyway.” Karen’s voice sharpened. “So, are you guys friends?”

Matt recognized this new tone well: Karen was about to start an inquisition. “I’m just worried about her,” he hedged.

“Why? Is she in danger?”

“No. At least, not that I know of. Besides, she can take care of herself.” He narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses. “Why?”

“Oh, nothing,” Karen said innocently. “Just that I can’t remember the last time I saw you this determined to fix a problem that wasn’t a physical danger.”

Wait, really? That made him sound so heartless. At the same time, what about the fact that no one would be _around_ to have heart-to-hearts if he failed to save them from enemies like Fisk or the Hand?

Karen must’ve seen the indignation on his expression, because she softened her voice. “I’m glad you’re worried about her, Matt. Really. I just think the situation is more complicated than you’re wanting to admit. Maybe even to yourself.”

Matt hunched his shoulders. Was he really that transparent? “I’m not pretending it’s not, uh…complicated.”

“Have you told her?” Karen asked gently.

“ _No_. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“Why not?”

He spread his hands helplessly. “I’m trying to _help_ her, not give her a new problem.”

“Why is you liking her a problem?”

“ _Shh_ ,” he hissed, like Jessica might be spying on them from across the coffee shop. Keeping his voice low, he did his best to explain how his feelings were a new variable she shouldn’t have to deal with. As he spoke, he got the distinct impression that Karen was not convinced.

“Okay,” she said eventually, “here’s the deal. I’ll reach out. I could use another PI’s perspective on one of my cases anyway. That way, you won’t be the only person checking in on her. And who knows?” There was a sly smile in Karen’s voice now. “I might be able to figure out if your feelings are really such a problem for her.”

Matt felt his eyes widen. “Karen. No. You can’t tell her—”

“I won’t be _telling_ her, Matt. That’s your job. I’ll just…investigate.” She stood up. “Coffee’s on you,” she said, and slipped out of the shop before he could formulate an argument as to why this was a very bad idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breaking news! They're ALL disasters!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, I feel like doing a getting-together Mess fic justice really requires writing an actual novel because there is just So Much going on with these two, but I reworked this enough that it doesn't feel super rushed to me, so I hope it doesn't feel rushed for you either!

Jessica

Being around Karen Page took…well, it took a lot of energy. Only partly because Karen herself had too much energy. (How much did she sleep? How much caffeine did she drink? Jessica didn’t want to know.) It was also hard for the obvious reason that Karen was so much like Trish, it actually hurt somewhere deep in Jessica’s chest. Their love of justice, their _relentless_ pursuit of truth, their dangerous stubbornness. Even the hint of something darker that they kept hidden even from the people who loved them.

Yeah, Karen talked about Wesley. That bloody story came out after Jessica mentioned something about taking out Kilgrave. It was a relief to know Karen didn’t share Matt’s whole thing about killing people, but there was definitely more Karen _wasn’t_ saying. Jessica accidentally found herself caring enough to do some digging, since apparently prying into other people’s histories was her twisted way of showing affection, and the story she found haunted her nightmares for weeks.

A car accident. Of course.

Anyway. The other thing that made being around Karen so hard was, weirdly enough, how much Jessica actually liked it. It was just…Jessica had gotten so used to wandering through life in a haze, not talking to anyone unless she was getting paid for it, not bothering to do anything that might make her feel happy (in fact, actively _avoiding_ it, like happiness would knock her even further off-balance) that hanging out with Karen was just…hard. Like working a muscle that had atrophied.

But it seemed important to Matt. Besides that, it seemed like it was maybe helping. Jessica never really initiated anything with Karen, but she made herself agree to hang out more often than not whenever Karen asked. It felt kind of pathetic, in the grand scheme of things, to be proud of herself for doing something as tiny as just _saying yes to spending time with another human being_ , but hey, it was _hard_ , and doing hard things was worth celebrating, right?

And it was good. (If this was Matt’s idea, she was going to thank him, and then kill him.) It wasn’t what she’d wanted, but it was apparently what she needed.

Not just in a weird personal way, either. Karen Page also helped with Jessica’s cases. Obviously, Jessica was still the more experienced PI. But Karen saw things through a different eye. A less cynical eye. Generally, Jessica thought cynicism led to a more accurate reading of the world. But every once in a while, Karen would pick up on something Jessica discounted, and it would actually lead somewhere.

Mostly, though, Jessica just appreciated having someone to hang out with on stakeouts. Karen was an _excellent_ stakeout partner. She always brought coffee to share (it tasted terrible until you added alcohol to it), she was patient, and she didn’t make small talk.

Well. Not usually.

They were lounging together on a fire escape across the street from Jessica’s target. Jessica was allowing herself to enjoy the warmth of the sun heating the metal, and also secretly replaying the look in Matt’s eyes when he said goodbye a couple days ago. Soft and sweet. Jessica didn’t really _do_ soft and sweet, but the warmth in his expression was better than the heated metal of the fire escape, and it was just…nice.

Shut up.

Normally, Jessica might think she was just projecting. But if there was one thing Matt Murdock was crap at, it was keeping his feelings off his face. (And keeping himself in one piece. And making good decisions in general. And…a lot of things, actually.) Which meant he felt _something_. She just didn’t know _what_. And she hated being in limbo like this. She’d start digging to find out for herself, but that kind of felt like pitching herself off a cliff.

(What, was she _scared?_ )

Anyway. Jessica went back to just enjoying the memory of Matt’s eyes without analyzing anything. Safer that way.

Karen was sitting next to Jessica, apparently lost in her own thoughts, when she suddenly said, “Have you ever brought Matt on a stakeout?”

Jessica blinked, still watching the window of the allegedly cheating husband. “What?”

“Have you ever brought Matt on a stakeout?” Karen repeated.

Jessica reminded herself that this was not weird. Karen and Matt were friends; of course she’d mention him sometimes, even if she hadn’t before. But still. “Uh, why would I?”

“Come on, you don’t think those supersenses of his would be helpful?”

Huh. They would, obviously, but Jessica _hadn’t_ thought of that. Not really. She and Matt already…hung out or whatever…enough. Bringing him along on a job just felt like letting him into too much of her life.

(Why would that be such a bad thing?)

“Jess?”

Jessica realized she still hadn’t actually answered Karen. “Oh. Uh. Yeah. They would.”

“Cool. I think he’d like that.”

Jessica finally tore her eyes away from the other building to gape at Karen. “ _What?_ ”

Karen, however, was looking serenely at their target’s window. “Hmm?”

“Why would you say that?” Jessica demanded.

“Say what?” Karen asked calmly, taking a sip of her coffee.

Jessica suddenly felt like the job was secondary to some private mission of Karen’s, and she did not like it. “What are you talking about?”

“Stakeouts,” Karen answered, like Jessica was being stupid.

Huffing to herself, Jessica went back to staring at her target.

But Karen wasn’t done. “I mean, you two have been hanging out more recently, haven’t you?”

Jessica stiffened. “Who?”

“You and Matt.”

“I thought you were talking about stakeouts.”

“I am,” Karen said innocently.

Jessica was confused enough that the best idea seemed to be just keeping her mouth shut.

“Haven’t you, though?” Karen pressed.

“What?”

“You and Matt. Hanging out.”

“Why?” Jessica asked defensively. “Did he say something?”

“Would it be a problem if he did?”

Jessica was starting to feel like Karen had missed her calling as an interrogator. “No,” she muttered mutinously.

“Great,” Karen said cheerfully, and then _didn’t say anything else._

Paranoia was pretty much Jessica’s constant state, but it ramped up a bit now. She snuck a glance at Karen. “What did he say?”

Karen turned in time to meet Jessica’s stare. “He enjoys it.” But there was a look in her eyes that suggested she was holding something back.

Jessica blew out a gusty sigh of frustration.

Karen’s lips twitched like she was in on some secret joke. “What?”

“Why are you guys talking about me?”

“Why wouldn’t we? You’re our friend.”

It was weird enough facing the fact that Jessica apparently now had not one but two friends, let alone figuring out how to ask what she really wanted to know. So for maybe the first time in her life, Jessica stopped pushing for intel.

But she didn’t stop thinking about it. And she couldn’t quite stop analyzing everything, looking for ( _hoping_ for) more.

Matt

It wasn’t often that Jessica was the one to reach out to him first. When she did, he generally dropped whatever he was doing.

(That was not a sustainable reaction, as Foggy continually reminded him.)

She invited him on a stakeout.

“It’s nothing,” she said gruffly when he showed up in jeans, a dark hoodie, and his glasses. “Karen said your senses might be helpful.”

Ah. He needed to get Karen some flowers. “So you’re just using me for my body?” he quipped.

Her head snapped towards him, hair brushing over her shoulders, but he had no idea if her expression was amused, annoyed, or…. And her voice gave nothing away as she ordered him to follow.

They huddled on a fire escape somewhere, metal attached to a brick building worn down by too many years, and a chill night breeze swept over them. She had her ever-present flask to trick her body into thinking it was warm; he tried to slip into a half-meditative state without losing track of the person they were targeting (who was asleep—not exactly riveting). Unfortunately, Matt was quickly realizing that meditating close to Jessica was…difficult. Her heartbeat distracted him and her every breath past her lips stole his attention.

He was starting to think he wasn’t quite pulling his weight with this whole stakeout mission.

“Hey,” she said abruptly. As usual with her, it came with no warning. No hitch of breath, no shift in pulse. Just a word suddenly flung at him. “What do you hear?”

“Uh.” He hastily refocused. But their target was still asleep. “No change.”

“No, not him.” Jessica’s head didn’t turn towards him; she wasn’t bothering to look at him. “Just, you know…around.”

Why did she care what he could hear if it wasn’t related to their target? He acquiesced anyway. “Cars. Horns. The usual.”

“Okay.” For a moment, she didn’t say anything else. And she still wasn’t looking at him, unless she was sneaking glances out of the corner of her eye, and at this point, it was starting to feel deliberate. Then she shifted slightly where she was seated. “What about…closer?”

Huh? That was new. He closed his eyes to enhance his concentration. “Pigeons on the roof.”

“What about in the building?”

Her heart was beating a little faster. So was his. Which building was she even talking about? Their target’s? Or the building attached to the fire escape where they were crouching?

It made sense that she’d ask about their target’s building, except she should’ve started with that, not wasted time asking about other random things. Unless these questions weren’t about the job at all.

He focused his senses on their building. “Uh, there’s a couple a few floors down. They’re watching a game. Football, I think? They’re rooting against each other and teasing each other about it.”

“Interesting,” she said neutrally, “but I was wondering…” _Now_ her breathing hitched, so near-silently he could barely hear it, “…what you hear even closer.”

Could she possibly mean what he thought she meant? Even if she did, he wasn’t going to go there until she was explicitly clear, leaving no ambiguity. Still, he drew his senses a little closer. “There’s a…mouse,” he said, lips curving upward slightly at the sound of tiny paws scuffling nearby. “In the wall.” He gestured with one hand to the wall supporting their fire escape. “Gnawing an uncooked piece of macaroni.”

Jessica let out a sudden, sharp laugh. “Ew.”

“You don’t like mice?”

She shuddered, actually _shuddered_ , and it was such a weird gesture for her that he felt himself smile. “They’re disgusting.”

He was kind of delighted by this revelation. “I think they’re nice.” They were quiet and unobtrusive and not so dirty compared to the rest of the world.

“They’re _pests_ , not—” She cut herself off. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“No idea what you mean,” he said, despite the fact that his grin had broadened into an expression he seemed to recall her once referring to as _stupid_.

“You’re an idiot.”

“Agreed,” he said immediately.

She drew herself up, indignant. “I’m _insulting_ you, you—”

“Aw, but you don’t mean it.” The words were out before he could think twice. He tensed, all too aware that alluding to the intrusiveness of his abilities was liable to get him kicked off this fire escape.

But she fired back, “Prove it.”

And yet there was…something in her voice. A challenge, yes, but something more hesitant beneath that. Almost…vulnerable.

This wasn’t a joke. This wasn’t verbal sparring. This was…an actual invitation?

Even though she still hadn’t turned towards him.

He kept his voice even, level. “Your heartrate stayed steady.”

Now it was speeding up, though, beating faster and louder, drumming in his ears, but all she did was mumble, “I didn’t want to let you get close.”

He had _no idea_ what she meant by that, nor whether it was actually a good thing, but he was stuck on the implication that she _had_ let him get close. “Jessica…”

She drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around herself. “You’re pretty much my best friend now, Matt. Did you know that?”

He would’ve said _only_ friend, until she started spending time with Karen. “Um…”

“And I really, _really_ don’t want to ruin that.”

Her train of thought seemed to be running at about five times the speed of his, racing from thought to thought too quickly for him to follow her logic. But he was certain of his answer: “You won’t.”

Her answering laugh was small and sad and bitter. “You don’t know that.”

“But I believe it.” It came out sounding a bit more earnest than he’d meant.

Maybe that was a good thing, though, because her head finally turned towards him. She paused, as if studying him. Then: “Prove it.”

Was she—was she really—did she really just—

Another invitation.

Swallowing hard, he edged slightly closer, close enough to feel her body heat through their layers of clothing. A cold fire escape really wasn’t the place he would’ve chosen, but at the same time, he supposed it was fitting for the two of them. He reached out slowly, so slowly, with one hand, listening to her every reaction.

She held perfectly still, heart beating fast but not with fear, as his hand settled where her shoulder met her neck, his thumb stretching up over her scarf to rest against her pulse.

“Jessica,” he whispered. “Can I kiss you?”

Her breathing changed, but before he could even try to interpret it, she’d twisted them both until she was pressing him back against the wall of the building, the coolness of the ancient brick seeping through his jacket. She hovered in front of him, honey-whisky breath blowing in his face, and kept him pinned with one hand while the other gently (so gently) slid his glasses off and tucked them into his pocket.

She took a deep breath. “No one’s ever actually asked that before.”

Then she leaned in, mouth pressing against his.

He melted.

It wasn’t like he thought a kiss would change anything, any more than he thought asking permission guaranteed anything. It was just that…he _cared_ about her, so deeply, and he had at least a sense of why it was so hard for her to let people care about her at all, and yet here she was. Trusting him. Letting him in.

He wanted more, so much more. He wanted her to tell him all the things she didn’t like, trusting that he’d never use them against her. He wanted her to tell him all the things she _did_ like because she actually expected him to want to make her happy. He wanted her to tell him all the reasons why letting people care about her was so hard, just so he could understand her better.

But for now, this was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *buries face in hands* ugh ROMANCE  
> ANYWAY this was a really cute prompt, and I hope you liked it!


End file.
